How To Customize Your First Dance

Your first dance. That special moment. The Perfect Song. With perfect lyrics.

But…. it’s 8 minutes long, there is crowd noise, and that one stupid line about getting it on.

Back to the drawing board?

Not necessarily. It’s actually very possible to edit down your song to a sweet 2 minutes 30 seconds, swear free, studio like performance.

What it takes to edit a song down professionally is a solid understanding of musical structure and phrasing, and experience with music editing software, better known as DAW(Digital Audio Workstation). We recommend hiring someone to do it who has experience in professional editing (cough. cough. us.) but can be a DIY project if you can allocate the time and work past the frustration that comes with learning a new skill.

For a basic editing out parts of the song:

What you will need is: Computer Garageband Software (you can use lots of other DAW’s but this tends to be the easiest for people who are inexperienced) Digital copy of your song

1. Open Garageband. 2. Click on Loops. 3. Name your project then hit create. 4. “Drag and drop” the song you want to edit from iTunes on to your open Garageband window. 5. Listen to your song. 6. Find the very beginning of the phrase you want to cut out. Use the mouse to select the exact mark. 7. Click on edit, split. 8. Find the very ending of the phrase you want to cut out. Use the mouse to select the exact mark. 9. Click on edit, split. 10. use the mouse to click on the the specific part you are cutting out so that it is highlighted. Make sure the parts you are keeping are not highlighted. click delete. 11. You now will be missing a section of the song and need to drag the second section to the first. Use your mouse and drag the section over. 12. If you cut the song on phrase, it should sound pretty good.

It can be that easy. If you are new to this it will take some time and patience as you may need to do a few attempts till it sounds perfect.

At Sound in Motion, we would love to help make your day that much more special, so contact us about pricing for your custom edits.